


The Master of Death

by tori_cat13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, xxxHoLic
Genre: Dimension Travel?, Gen, Harry did anyway, Master of Death Harry Potter, One Shot, Well - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 05:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10824804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tori_cat13/pseuds/tori_cat13
Summary: Watanuki had found the three Deathly Hallows in the storage shed, but how did they get there?A story of when the tired Master of Death visits Yuuko's wish shop.





	The Master of Death

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Three Brothers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/402914) by [RiverDaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverDaisy/pseuds/RiverDaisy). 



> I read The Three Brothers by RiverDaisy and really wanted to write a sequel. I may or may not rewrite more connected to this story. Such as a story following Harry or a story where Harry and Watanuki meet. Who knows. But I hope you all like this.

    It had taken a long, long time to find but this lead—his last lead—seemed to finally be the one to pan out. The old-fashioned wooden house in the middle of crowded Tokyo was steeped in an air of magic and mystery. Maybe here he could find the answer he needed.

    The Master of Death took a fortifying breath, desperately trying to shove the hope that was starting to burn in the back of his throat down, and marched forwards. The door opened silently as he reached it. Ambiguous child-looking beings, one with pale blue the other with pale pink hair, stood waiting for him. “Mistress Yuuko is waiting, Master of Death,” they said in unison.

    “I thought she might be,” Harry Potter, once known as the Boy-Who-Lived, responded.

    They lead him through and to the courtyard. The Space-Time Witch was sprawled elegantly across a chaise lounge, her straight knee length black hair partially swept up and held with thick wooden chopsticks diagonally. She had indeed been waiting for him since her outfit paid homage to him by small metal pendants hanging from the chopstick in the shape of the sign of the Deathly Hallows.

    “Did you know,” she said slowly, not bothering to look at him yet instead focusing her gaze parallel to her shoulder off to the right, “that if you give someone your name, you give them the ability to take your soul? And if you give someone your birthday, you give over the control of your whole life?” She finally looks at him, sideways and without turning her head. Her eyes are red.

    “What if those things have never been yours to give, if everyone already knows those two things, except perhaps yourself?”

    “The answer is the same. But I think you already know that, Harry James Potter.” She tilted her head, the pendants hanging from her hair chiming with the movement. “And I think you’ve already experience it.”

    Harry nodded. He had experience it. The entire Wizarding World had known his name and they did take his soul, leaving nothing of the person he had been before learning he was the Boy-Who-Lived. Albus Dumbledore had known his birthday and had taken complete control over his life from birth—perhaps even a bit before—to his death, even if that death hadn’t been as permanent as Albus had seemed to plan for. Hell, even after both their deaths the old man had managed to control him—urging him back to life to ‘complete his destiny.’

    “What wish has brought you here, my dear Master of Death?” Yuuko asked as she repositioned herself slightly more upright, her long legs sliding against each other shown through the part in her silver and black kimono patterned with phoenix feather embroidery. She was barefoot. “Somethings are inevitable,” she said as if in warning.

    “I want to be able to die,” he said simply. “This accursed title, I never wanted. I’ve been forced to watch as my world ended and then I was sent to another and then that one ended and another and another, every time being forced to live as everyone around me died.

    “I’ve sought an end countless times and in every dimension. None could give me it. Until I heard a whisper on the wind, it breathed through the fabric of the universe, and it spoke of a shop where wishes are granted. I followed it. To you.”

    She raised the tobacco pipe to her lips and inhaled. When she breathed out the smoke curled in patterns in the air around them. “Murdering people is a dangerous thing, and something I won’t do. No matter the reason, killing a person gives the killer a heavy weight. The price is too steep; anyone who knows this will not kill again. So think again on what you want.”

    Harry dropped his head and stared down. She said she wouldn’t kill him. But she had also hinted that what he truly wanted wasn’t exactly death so…. “I wish to not be the Master of Death anymore.” It was not something he could do himself—abdicate the title.

    To become the Master of Death took more than just collecting the three artifacts together; the one who did so had to have proper ownership of them, had to not be seeking the power that came with the title, and had to—as the tale had put it—greet death as an old friend and go with him gladly, departing this life as equals. Only when someone met all those requirements did they gain the title and power of being Master of Death. But like all things, the universe balances and the ownership of the Deathly Hallows locks in place, and the Master is then unable to give up the title and power. Such gifts are such curses. This is the way of the universe.

    Yuuko slowly stood up and walked towards him. “ _That_ wish, I can grant. But are you willing to pay the price, Harry Potter?”

    “Yes.”

 

 

 

    Later, Yuuko placed a plain oaken box with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on the front and the words _Master of Death_ on the back into the storeroom. When she exited she was not at all surprised to see the form of Shizuka Doumeki lounging against one of the pillars on the porch. He often came by these days to tell her of Watanuki’s day since there is no reason—to Watanuki’s knowledge—for her to be in his life. Soon, she thought. Soon they would meet again.

    “What was his price?” Shizuka asked.

    “His wish had multiple parts to it, so it had multiple prices. He wished to no longer be Master of Death, which gave him everlasting life and certain artifacts. Hm, to simplify it: he wanted to die, he wanted to give of a cloak of invisibility, a stone to call back the dead, and a wand that couldn’t be beaten.

    “So his price was to live, to be seen, to be put into submission, and to be with the dead. In short, and due to outstanding debts owed to and from him, the universe balanced his books by requiring payment in the form of him being sent to a place similar to his past to relive his life but without the presence of the Deathly Hallows in it. It won’t be the same life and he’ll forever be subjected to the Laws that govern myself, but he did get his wish.”

    “Sounds overly complicated,” Shizuka grunted. “Like something that would happen to Kimihiro.”

    Yuuko threw back her head and laughed. She completely agreed and the brief thought of what would happen if those two met crossed her mind, causing her to smirk.

    Perhaps one day.


End file.
